Over the last forty years, schools' use of exclusionary discipline tactics, such as suspension and expulsion, increased by nearly 50% (Office for Civil Rights 2014). Research suggests that the suspension and expulsion of students may negatively affect future educational attainment, interaction with the criminal justice system, and other indicators…

The purpose of this study was to examine disproportionate disciplinary rates among Black girls and whether the disproportionality impacts reading achievement in comparison to White girls in Texas urban and suburban public schools, Grades 3-9, in the 2015-2018 academic years. To determine the extent to which inequities were present in the…

We continue to witness disparities in exclusionary disciplinary outcomes within K-12 public schools, leading to persistent concerns for educational equity. In-school suspensions represent one of the most frequently employed components of school exclusionary discipline systems, and they are also largely left up to the discretion of principals and…

The School Improvement Division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) identifies, monitors, and supports low-performing schools. To identify low-performing schools, TEA assigns annual academic accountability ratings to its districts and schools, but these ratings are provided only once per year and are vulnerable to disruptions in the assessment…

The School Improvement Division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) identifies, monitors, and supports low-performing schools. To identify low-performing schools, TEA assigns annual academic accountability ratings to its districts and schools, but these ratings are provided only once per year and are vulnerable to disruptions in the assessment…

Dropout remains a persistent challenge within high school education. In this paper, we present a case study on automatically detecting whether a student is at-risk of dropout within a diverse school district in Texas. We predict whether a student will drop out in a future school year from data on students' discipline, attendance, course-taking,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the type of grade configuration and racial climate of a school on the academic performance and discipline of middle school aged students. Specifically, this study was concerned with the predictive power of the type of grade configuration (stand-alone middle school vs. non-transition…

Unsupported fears of youth violence in schools has led to an expansion of school-based policing and zero tolerance discipline. The historical reality is that America's public schools are very safe, even when located in high crime neighborhoods. Yet, school discipline is becoming increasingly punitive, moving from the schoolhouse to the courthouse.…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the spring 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) results from a community college located in Southeast Texas to determine what relationship student engagement had to student persistence and academic performance and if that relationship differed by race, ethnicity, or academic program.…